i'm michelle caruso-cabrera.hn taylor, former treasury department undersecretary. you have this wonderful book out about the five key principles and one of them i want for you to help articulate for us. trust in the power of the markets. >> absolutely. >> the markets have become beaten and battered and so many people say the markets were the problem. can you help us fight that? because -- >> the markets weren't the problem. the fed took the rate so slow slow in 2003, 2004, 2005, we had the interventions early on with the fed, which made things worse for a while, though they did some good things, too. winking a little bit at some of those high risks it and at the commercial banks, a hundred regulators of the new york fed on the board the citibank, et cetera. a lot of things the government did incorrectly that led to this. the message that government has to do more is wrong. >> that has become the consensus thing that the government has to do something. how do we beat that back and do you see any republican candida

i'm michelle caruso-cabrera. i'm in for maria bartiromo. >> and i'm bob pisani. the nasdaq dropped in negative terry. we're still up. not far from the lows of the day. nasdaq just hit the lows of the day. we were at 3030 earlier. >> yes, we were. >> we just moved into negative territory. also near the lows of the day, still on the upside. michelle? >> once again, you see how dominant apple is. let's take a look at the stand out stocks in today's session. bank of america is bucking the trend down nearly 5% right now. the stock is getting hit after analysts downgraded the stock to a sell from underperform earlier today. remember, it's a dow component. apple is weighing on technology and near the session lows. stock is now off 10% off the high of 644, back since april 10th and the worst weeks since july 2010. the s&p are back on weekly gains. only technology stocks are negative for the week. >> as we look at the next week, what can the market expect? ron insauna and what's your sense of where we are here after several months of generally great economic news, it's be

and now let's go to michelle caruso-cabrera. she's done extensive reporting in mexico on business and how it's done there and on the culture there. she joins us now from mexico city. michelle, what's been the reaction from mexico city? >> well, from business leaders some have shrugged their shoulders. some surprised a company like walmart would be accused of such a thing. but paying of bribes nobody was surprised that i spoke with. they felt it was business as usual. let's show you the mexican stock exchange. brian highlighted how walmart of mexico is trading. it's well off of its lows but still down 12% and the second largest stock. so as a result we see the mexican lower by more than 1.5%. it had been down almost 2.5% earlier. as walmex came off lows it's improved. if you read the "new york times" article they clearly focus on a man called eduardo castro white. he's now the vice chairman of walmart in the united states. david faber actually got to sit down and talk with him last time he was updating the walmart documentary. we

cnbc's michelle caruso-cabrera is in mexico city covering the story. >> the newspaper's investigation suggests that walmart executives here in mexico spent millions of dollars on bribes in the early 2000 to give out money to local government officials so that they would speed up the permitting process so that they could build their stores more quickly. >> reporter: in a statement walmart said, we're deeply concerned by these allegations and are working aggressively to determine what happened. the "times" reported that the walmart executives at their arkansas headquarters are evidence of the bribes in 2005, but allegedly tried to cover it up despite the company's public commitment to high ethical standards. >> i'm very surprised that they would have allowed anything like this to have occurred in mexico and even more so tried to bury it as opposed to exposing it once they learned there was an irregularity. >> reporter: wal-mart could be prosecuted for violating the federal corrupt practices act. that could mean fines for the company and prison for the executives. the allegations are a b

. >>> up next, business before the bell with cnbc's michelle caruso-cabrera.lieve the mayan calendar, on december 21st polar shifts will reverse the earth's gravitational pull and hurtle us all into space. which would render retirement planning unnecessary. but say the sun rises on december 22nd, and you still need to retire. td ameritrade's investment consultants can help you build a plan that fits your life. we'll even throw in up to $600 when you open a new account or roll over an old 401(k). so who's in control now, mayans? >>> time to get business before the bell with michelle caruso cabrera at cnbc. what do you got? >> chrysler sales year-over-year, up 34%. pretty incredible move. one of the big reasons is fiat is up 600%, 642%. numbers stilt you had, the first ye -- numbers will be stilted, but chrysler back from a terrible year last year. ford sales up 5%. don't think chrysler doing better than ford, chrysler up 34%, ford 5%. chrysler had a terrible year last year. however, auto sales are coming in stronger. here are key numbers to remember. right now

i'm michelle caruso cabrera in for maria bartiromo. >> and i'm bill griffeth. a dip this spanish borrowing costs and the dow is up nearly 200 points. also adding to the optimism, upbeat comments on citigroup by the latest earnings report. we're expecting a trifecta of big technology earnings when the bell rings in an hour. ibm, intel, and yahoo! all report after the bell. that's still to come on the "closing bell." >> first, let's take a look at where we stand with less than an hour to go in the trading day. the dow is higher 195 points. we've been up 200 but still we'll take it. 13,116 in a very, very broad rally. the nasdaq is higher by more than 60 points. a gain of more than 2%. s&p 300 with a gain of 1.5%. 1391. holy canoli. >> shares helping to fuel this rally today after meredith whitney held that with an outperform. here's what she said a month ago right here on "closing bell." >> citi hasn't been investable in 40 years. >> what would it take you to invest in citi? >> a new brand. >> apparently they are getting one. >> a new brain. >> here's more from c

i'm michelle caruso-cabrera. bob pisani will join me in just a bit. thanks to solid earnings due to general electric whether the stock is cheap. >> and here's how we look at the dow jones well off the highs. and we came not just down on apple, the s&p did end the day and week in positive territory. >> let's talk about the highlights of the week. you're in the anchor chair today because bill is off. you watch the markets. i'm going to disagree with you. i want to blame it all on apple. >> it's more wobbly on apple. i can tell you the minute apple started trading over 30 million shares, that was six or seven trading sessions. trading 22, 2 4r4. earnings have been strong. retail sales were good. the ipo action was good. i see positives out there. i'm not worried apple. the housing starts were a disappointment and i know everybody wants to blame bank of america, but there's not a lot of loan growth that is out there. there are separate issues that concern me a little bit. i'm worried about the fact that we have a couple weeks of very choppy economic stori

i'm michelle caruso-cabrera. i'm in more maria bartiromo. >> we have an hour to go here. anything can happen. let's see where we stand. dow down 136 points, now a decline of 109 at 12,923. yes, we are back below 13,000. we are below the 50-day moving average. apple has been down sharply. >> here's a look at the stocks making big late day moves. shares of apple are down. that's putting more pressure onned it broader tech sector. the stock is taking a hit on speculation that the company may miss the streets iphone sales target when it reports results next tuesday. another name weighing on the blue chips is mcdonald's, down on heavy volume ahead of earnings. some of it may be due to missing consensus estimates due to various global issues. the s.e.c. is voting today. we're going to hear from president sean egan and get his story straight ahead. >> in the meantime, bob pisani has a recap. we started okay this morning but have gone south since then. >> we have two problems. number one, the market leader, apple. the second problem is the economic data is not cooperating existin

michelle caruso-cabrera is live in mexico. >> hi, gary. the mexican officials have just announced that they will investigate the bribery allegations. they are going to ask the department of justice for all relevant information and look at the walmart workers in question and federal workers in question and if there are state and local workers in question, they are going to hand that information over to the proper authorities so they can act and there will be prosecutions if in fact they find something. this is significant because up until now we heard almost zero out of the mexican government when it came to the allegations, even though we already had heard from the u.s. government that they were going to investigate. up until now, authorities had said that they didn't have the authority to do anything until they received a complaint. now we learn that the federal government says they are going to investigate the situation. >> right. michelle, thanks for that breaking news. we appreciate it. 30 minutes left to go in trading. investors are r

i'm michelle caruso cabrera. >> and i'm bill griffeth. the dow off the lows of the day after posting losses in the session. technology is the early losers after ibm and intel failed to impress investors with the earnings results. that group is off the lows of the day at the moment, though. here's a look at where things stand at this hour as we go into the last hour of trading. dow off the lows down 54. we were down 87 on the low of the day. now at 13,061 and change. a decline of half a percent. the nasdaq is positive for only the be second time today. up a third of a point at 2,043. >> take a look at the stocks that we're watching in the final hours. american express reports earnings after the bell. we're awaiting results from big names like ebay, qualcomm, and young brand. stay tuned for instant analysis and reaction. the argentan government reduced production due to a state takeover. >>> reversal of fortunes on wall street. big two-day rally before this. we have bob pisani on the floor of the new york stock exchange. simon hobbs, can't

. >> i'm michelle caruso-cabrera in mexico city. markets have been closed in the wake ever allegations of widespread bribery. >> michelle will be back to you live as we take a break. take a look at the red wall. a few in the green today. travel is now flat. back in a moment on the "closing bell." tdd# 1-800-345-2550 we're hitting new highs. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 and i'm on top of it all with charles schwab. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 tdd# 1-800-345-2550 i use streetsmart edge and its tools like... tdd# 1-800-345-2550 screener plus - i can custom build my own screens tdd# 1-800-345-2550 or use predefined ones. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 and i can trade wherever i want, tdd# 1-800-345-2550 whenever i want. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 the kicker? tdd# 1-800-345-2550 i pay $8.95 a trade. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 that's a deal in any language. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 open an account tdd# 1-800-345-2550 and trade up to 6 months tdd# 1-800-345-2550 commission-free. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 call 1-866-393-6174. hey, heard any updates on the game? i think it's final seconds, ohh,

i'm michelle caruso-cabrera in for maria bartiromo. >> here's what we're following on the close on this very busy day. all 10 s&p 500 sectors were higher today. the dow and nasdaq both rallying. the dow back above 13,000. the nasdaq back above 3,000. still on pace for the biggest monthly decline, though, since september, we're halfway through the month. all eyes turn to the try trifecta of earnings. ibm, intel, and yahoo! due to report any moment now. we'll have instant analysis of all of those results coming up momentarily. plus, we'll breakdown intel numbers and then the cfo, stacy smith, will join us and we'll talk about earnings with the head of u.s. bancorp. michelle? >> that's a good sign. we'll talk more about that coming up. here's how we finished the day on wall street. the dow jones industrial average higher than 193 points. 1.5% gain. 13,114. nasdaq not too shabby either. higher by 54 points. well above the 3,000 level all over again. what apple selloff, you say? s&p higher by 21 points. 1390 is where we are. still below the 1400 level. bob pisani is our eye on the floor of t

michelle caruso-cabrera. >>> for some of us, we may be paying student loans until we're gray.ding to a report by federal reserve bank of new york, consumer credit in past due student knowns, nearly 20% of that debt were held by senior citizens 50 or older. take a look at this pie chart. 12% of the delinquents are in the age group of 50 to 59. nearly 5% came from 60 or older. a story was wrote in "the washington post". those numbers are alarming. americans 06 and older owe billions in loans because they kept passing it on and not paying back regularly? tell us what's going on? >> there are a numb bother f things driving this trend. one thing you're finding, because of this recession many older americans are being force god back to school in order to remain competitive in the labor market. that's one thing. another thing, because tuition rates are rising you're finding parents and even grand parents are cosigning with their kids in order to help them pay for the loans and finally what you're seeing is student loans are one type of debt that actually cannot be discharged in bankr

our chief international correspondent, michelle caruso-cabrera, is here to explain why they should care. hi, michelle. >> yeah. because if we have a whole series of elections that go against what we've been seeing in the past, that means that the whole bailout plan that we've come to know it in europe suddenly becomes at risk. and we begin to wonder what exactly is going to be the strategy over there. first up on sunday french elections. americans may see one of the most familiar faces that they know, nicholas sarkozy, lose his job as leader of france. you see him there on the left. first elections are on sunday. then there's a runoff coming up later on in may. we expect that's what's going to happen. the guy on the right, he should be on the left because he's far more socialist, he wants to do things like lower the retirement age. they just raised it to 62 in france, which many people think is too low already. he wants to lower it back down to 60. he wants to spend a lot more money on subsidies. he wants to ramp up debt and raise taxes on the wealthy. going as far as some people making

michelle caruso-cabrera sat down exclusively with the home depot ceo.ive at the global retailing conference in tucson, arizona. >> hey, julia. the answer is, it's pretty tough as goes the housing market, so goes home depot. at least for their revenues. remember, they actually never had an unprofitable year even during the worst parts of the downturn, but they did see a big decline in sales. last year they did $70 billion in revenue. my question to frank blake was how close are you to being back to even to that pre-sales level before the downturn? >> no. we're not close to even. if you look at the end of 2006, we dropped off at the worst point $13 billion of revenue. so we were $13 billion smaller business. we grew in 2010. we grew in 2011. so we're kind of clawing our way back, but we haven't nearly recovered the $13 billion. we've got another $8 billion to $9 billion to go still. >> how many years do you think that takes? >> so that gets back to your question on the housing market and how the housing market recovers. you know, right now if you plan it

our chief international correspondent, michelle caruso-cabrera, making one of her rare appearances here at headquarte headquarters. hey, michelle. >> hey, tyler. if you look at the market reaction initially to china's gdp number, you might think i thought it was going to be a hard landing, it was pretty negative. remember, there were rumors yesterday that chinese gdp growth would be above 9% for the quarter. instead it was 8.1%. let's give you some long-term context on that number. 8.1% looks like a big number. if you go just to the last three months last year grew at 8.9%. one year ago they grew at 9.7%. and look at that number back from 2010. they were growing at nearly 12% in quarter. let's give you a graphic which shows -- demonstrates this move intuitively. this is the pace of growth of china's gdp. so not the actual size of the gdp because that would be going up. instead this is the pace of the growth. as you can see, it's been a steady decline. i think a lot of people look at that and say so farther engineering a soft landing at this point. what's also crucial about this gdp numb

our michelle caruso-cabrera is there with the ceo of macy's in a cnbc exclusive at the retailing center. michelle, not coincidentally named for the one and only terry lundgren. >> reporter: exactly. yes, terry lundgren here. ceo of macy's. thanks for having us as exclusive broadcaster here. >> glad you're here. thank you. >> big question right now in retailing, the extraordinary same store sales numbers we saw in the first part of the year, your company no exception, same store sales up more than 7% in march, more than 6% year-to-date, is that a strong consumer? or is that all pull forward because of good weather? do you expect we're going to see a deceleration in sales? >> we've had close to two and a half years of same store sales growth at significant rates. we're picking up more than $1 billion a year in same store sales growth. so we've got momentum. so in our case i see that just continuing. >> you don't think the weather had anything to do with it? seriously, any deceleration expected or no? >> in our case we feel really good about the strategies. it's not just one thing or anoth

our michelle caruso-cabrera has traveled from mexico to bentonville, arkansas, which is walmart's home base. over to you, michelle. >> hey, thanks very much, sue. we are in front of the very original, very first walmart. of course it wasn't called walmart. it was called walton's 5-10 named after the founder. this is the seed that grew into an enormous global empire of retailing. the biggest retail in the world. right now that retailer is facing serious allegations about potential bribery south of the border more than 1,000 miles away in mexico. this morning standard & poors came out and supported the share saying we believe the market has overestimated the long-term economic impact on walmart from fines, legal costs and slower growth as a result of alleged violations. you can see how they gapped open both of them on monday morning over a one-week period shares of walmart lower by 5.5%. and shares of walmex lower by more than 11%. walmart has a large majority ownership stake in walmex. they expect headlines to dissipate and shares should be able to outperform. headline risk at this poin

we begin with michelle caruso-cabrera in mexico city for more on whether this stuff is business as usualmexico. over to you, mcc. >> maria, business leaders in this country say they are not surprised that government officials would have accepted bribes over the years in order to speed up the processing to build faster stores or build stores more quickly for wal-mart. they are surprised, however, that wal-mart would be accused of such a thing and are more surprised to read in the new york times that allegedly when it was told to those in the states that wal-mart tried to cover it up. wal-mart of the united states owned a majority of wal-mart mexico, with 2,000 stores in the country, shares hammered today. down by more than 12%. that's improvement on the open. average daily volume 12 million shares. they did that in the first eight minutes of trade. when the mexico bulls open this morning, walmx was so weak. you can see it came off of its lows. walmx just reporting a few minutes ago, up making $368 million in profits. once again, the attitude here, you won't see this on the front page afte

michelle caruso-cabrera is with me all this week.ok forward to seeing you at the top of the hour. back to you guys. >> bill, thanks very much. shares of nokia, ouch, they're down again. new news today, moody's cutting credit rating to the single lowest investment grade and maintaining a negative outlook. adding nokia's financial position remains strong for now, but that cash conservation remains a priority. nokia stock about 20% in a week after the lumia 900 launch and first quarter warning nokia up a little right now but had a tough morning earlier today. >> ouch. meanwhile let's look at apple. shares down over 3% today. that's the fifth straight day of losses and apple has lost more than $50 billion in market cap during the slide. so if you've got some cash on hand to invest, which is the better bet right now, apple or google? our next guest says google hands down. onset with us ken heckle. ken, what's google's edge? >> google's edge with regard to capital its stability metrics. its perspective cash flows are much more certain than

our chief international correspondent michelle obama jo -- michelle caruso-cabrera joins us.e? >> somewhat worried. many say spain is the greece of 2012. here's the coded certavernacula need to learn "spain will seek a program" from the -- some people say, wows the deficit is a lot worse that be the last government told you about. spain put out a new budget, it started the weakness in europe, leading to a bad auction yesterday where they started to borrow money. spain, their deficit was supposed to be below 6% of gdp and now they've had to az rarai to 6%. spain in some ways is nowhere as bad as greece. the debt to gdp is at 68%. remember, greece, we were talking about 160% to gdp. so if we're going to have some kind of issue with greece, it's not going toing a bailout of sovereign debt, it's going to be a recapitalize their banks. in this way spain looks a lot more like ireland, which also had a massive real estate bubble. 40% of spain's gdp, the equivale equivalent. bank's balance sheets tripled during the precrisis decade. what do they do? they accumulated housing loans, $1

i'm joe kernen along with andrew ross sorkin and michelle caruso cabrera.t week. it was the back drop of -- >> walmart. >> spain and the 2.2% gdp and worries about this friday's employment number. it's not easy for the averages to advance. and the vix got close to breaking its 50-day moving average or might have broken it in terms of volatility. >> on the up side. >> yeah. >> on the down side, wow. nobody is worried. >> right. exactly. >> microsoft is making a $300 million investment in barnes & noble's nook, digital book business and college text unit. the ceo of barnes & noble talks to us this morning. >> the strategic underpinning is both companies have been involved in developing reading technology. we think this massive market for the distribution of global content is up for grabs. it still makes sense. we think together we can away leader in that market. >> holy smokes. look at this bid and ask in the wake of that deal. so barnes & noble, close to $13 on friday. the bid and the ask. >> barnes & noble on friday, a little over $8 million. the valuation

our michelle caruso-cabrera will join us live right after this.e back right after this. according to the sig, ford is having some sort of big tire event. i just want to confirm a few things with fiona. how would you describe the event? it's big. no,i mean in terms of savings how would you sum it up? big in your own words, with respect to selection, what would you say? big okay, let's talk rebates mike, they're big they're big get $100 rebate, plus the low price tire guarantee during the big tire event. so, in other words, we can agree that ford's tire event is a good size? big big an investment opportunity you didn't see before. fidelity's next generation ipad app lets you see what's trending around the world, as well as what over a million fidelity customers are trading throughout the day. and advanced charting lets you customize your views and set up your own comparisons. our ipad app can help refine your strategy or even find a new one. i'm velia carboni, and i helped create fidelity's next generation ipad app. it's one more innovative reason s

our international correspondent michelle caruso cabrera is live in next ka city with the latest on theod morning once again. >> good morning, carl. those numbers are an improvement. we've seen the average and also wall next come off of its lows this morning. keep in mind the mexican stock exchange has the same exact hours as the new york stock exchange so we'll know how the close is at the exactly the same time. despite what are incredible allegations in this "new york times" article that ran over the weekend about widespread bribery among walmart and mexico officials back in the early 2,000s, allegations of such, it's not a front page story here. we've actually called people within the story, and i've said to the sents, i'm sure you've been inundated by calls from journalists, and she says no, actually, you're the first one to call. so this is not the biggest story here, even though walmart is the largest employer in this country. that may be because it's long been seen that bribes are a way of doing business here. but it surprised many that a company like walmart might stand accused

turn here. >> per time to get with michelle caruso cabrera. >> good morning. cody wants to buy avon products. they make beyonce's favorite and baby phat's fragrance and they want to buy avon. >> tim has a fragrance? >> what do you mean? >> we didn't know he had a fragrance. >> intuitively. >> i don't understand fragrances. i don't get it. >> the one thing you understand about fragrances is the person who endorses it, it's like free money. the metrics are so good for the person who has it. >> you give everyone a headache. >> do you want to smell like a -- i don't know. >> tim mcgraw sex panther. >> you get your nails done, sally han is made by avon. they had a lot of trouble and they had declining profits and an investigation as to whether or not they have been bribing chinese officials. it's in turmoil and they are striking while they have the potential. avon said it's not enough money. if you own avon shares, the shares are higher by roughly 27%. what's significant is they are trading at even more than what cody is offering. the market is saying you have to p

michelle caruso-cabrera has been on the ground in mexico checking the pulse of how the walmart story has been playing out there. >> shares of walmex fell more than 12% in trading on monday. in response to the article in the "new york times"ss alleging wide scale bribery. but here in mexico, many mexican business leaders shrug their shoulders and say they're not surprised to read that mexican government officials would accept bribes in order to speed up permitting processes. they are surprised that walmart would be accused of such a thing and even more surprised that when the allegations were presented to walmart of united states, that they were allegedly covered up. if indeed thesations prove to be true, this could be completely expensive for walmart in terms of government fines. the company is deeply concerned and are conducting an internal investigation. >>> still to come, results of the bond auctions today out of the eurozone with a guest who says the euro could being much more sensitive to political strains. >>> italian economics minister said effectively there is no room for any

michelle caruso-cabrera is in mexico city with the very latest. >> these allegations stem back to 2005 and before. but "the new york times" revealed them only this weekend. the investigations suggest that executives at walmart mexico at the time paid more than $24 million in bribes to local government officials in order to speed up the permitting process for their new stores to be built more quickly. walmart now employs more than 200,000 people in this country. only the government employs more people. many here shrug their shoulders and say they're not surprised, that's how business gets done here in mexico. regardless, it is illegal for u.s. companies to pay bribes to foreign officials, and if these allegations prove to be true, they will result in massive fines. the company says that they are deeply concerned about the allegations and are conducting an internal probe. back to you. >> all right michelle caruso cab remembero in mexico city this morning. thank you, michelle. two nato service members have been killed in a bomb attack in eastern afghanistan. this as u.s. and afghan offici

>> i'll tell you, michelle caruso-cabrera, whenever she talks about argentina, she has her history downhe century, they were pretty much equal in many ways to the u.s. in terms of horse power, the standard of living and things went amiss. we all know some of the issues in history. it's really a sad story in many ways. unless you like the sickle and the hammer, it's a sad story. >> i would fall back on to that could never happen here because of our constitution and you're saying that it's a creeping -- that's we've already seen -- >> hey, even the mona lisa can get splashed by somebody throwing some paint on it. the constitution's a wonderful document. how they respect it, how they deal with it in the jurisprudence of the property and other issues like that, hey, it's always possible that it's going to be either diminished or increased in terms of stature. i think it's an amazing piece of paper personally and i don't think age makes a difference. liberty is at the heart of it all and i don't know that liberty changes. >> people just don't realize that individual freedom and economic free

our michelle caruso-cabrera is live with a cnbc exclusive. eo of macy's and why is the conference in arizona? because he went to the university of arizona and because of who he is, he can emass ceos all over the world. powerful individuals to talk about the state of retailing not just in the u.s. but all over the globe. one of the biggest names he has here is frank blake, ceo of home depot. 2,000 stores across the united states. it's always great to talk to frank blake about what is going on in the economy and with housing et cetera. one of my first questions to him is we've got an lot of economic data that suggested the economy was improving and then we got march employment numbers. what in his view is the state of the economy? >> our businesses are seasonal. we had a strong fourth quarter. strongest fourth quarter since back when housing bubble was going. but that was driven a lot by weather. we're seeing a continuation of nice warm weather in a lot of the country as we go into our first quarter. it's going to be a little difficult for us to

let's bring in our chief international correspondent, michelle caruso-cabrera, with more on the situatione should put on battle gear and getting ready to get back into it. >> that's the question we were trying to ask. we really wanted to look at the situation in europe and say what impact on u.s. stocks ultimately? are we going into a situation a year ago where it was horrendous turmoil. let's give you context about what simon has told you about. spain has been the issue this week. but the new prime minister of spain is a very different political animal than what we have seen in the past. every day this week he has come out announcing new measures and not been in denial like we have seen in the past with them yelling at markets and telling them they were wrong. he said we're going to reform and not just do austerity measures. he's not in a state of denial. simon hinted at this in his piece. look at spanish yields. they have climbed throughout the month. they are down today because of remarks from the guy at the european central bank saying that maybe they might buy spanish debt in the fut

michelle caruso-cabrera joins us. david faber will share some of the walmart culture issues. le in mexico. >> hey there, andrew. none of the business leaders are surprised local government officials would be accused of accepting bribes in order to speed up permitting processes. bribery is so rampant. according to the "new york times" articles, walmart and mexico from 2002 to 2005 used two people in particular to help them facilitate the process. local business leaders say they are surprised that, a, walmart would be involved, and, b, the amount of the payments and, c, that walmart executives would try to cover up once they were told about it. pee wee know from 2002 to 2005 there was tremendous growth at walmart in mexico. they increased the number of stores by more than 50%, had 147 new stores in that three-year time period. they run under suburbia, several store fronts here. they were building a lot. the "new york times" article points to edwardo castro wright, who went on to become vice chairman of walmart and is expected to retire in july. walmart says they're deeply concer

our michelle caruso cabrera is live. >> reporter: what you see behind me, carl, is the original walton'sthe huge global empire we know today, sam walton's five and dime. they're having a lot of trouble, more than 1,000 miles here in mexico as you mentioned. the latest is now there is a lot more scrutiny coming from mexico than we saw earlier in the week. if you recall our earlier reports, the stories are barely making the papers but now seven newspapers have run the story on the front page. we're showing some of them to you right now and executives here are waking up to find out there are power separate investigations now under way in mexico as well. and the chief of the government there put out a statement saying we are reviewing store by store everything. there are many different types of permits, used permits, construction permits, licenses. what we are doing is reviewing every authorization that was made during the time period in question in the newspaper article. that, of course, is "the new york times" article from the past weekend where the allegations of bribery were first expose

time now for a check on business before the bell with cnbc's michelle caruso-cabrera.bout 45 minutes, day two of a reaction to news we got out of the federal reserve. they put out their minutes from the meetings six minutes after the news happened. the news was that the federal reserve is more optimistic about the economy and hence is far less likely to do a lot more extended stimulus like we have seen in the past. good news for main street. bad news for traders, because they love those sugar injections into the economy. eventually, it turns out to be good news for the markets, corporate profits go higher, stocks move higher eventually. fed more optimistic about the economy. >> michelle, thank you very much. we will see you soon. >>> up next, the best of late night. 14 clubs. that's what they tell us a legal golf bag can hold. and while that leaves a little room for balls and tees, it doesn't leave room for much else. there's no room left for deadlines or conference calls. not a single pocket to hold the stress of the day, or the to-do list of tomorrow. only 14 clubs p

i'm michelle caruso-cabrera.o bring you breaking news from christine lagarde who's made comments about the spanish banks and about recapitalization of the banks which happens to be the big fear in europe at the moment. she said, look, the european financial stability fund, right now, those are bailout funds for countries. she thinks that should change. >> what we are advocating and what we have been advocating for a while and will continue to advocate is that possibly this be done without the channeling through the sovereign. >> reporter: skip the country altogether, go directly to the banks, mimicking what we did here in the united states. remember, guys, spain is not like greece. the government there does have a spending problem but not to the extent that greece has had. what the market fears is their banks are so severely undercapitalized that a bailout from the spanish government might eat up as much as 18% of that country's gdp. that might be too expensive. so why not bail out the banks directly? back to you